English 240
Slavery in Fredrick Douglass
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass was the most distinguished and influential black leader of the nineteenth century. Douglass focused his writings on the punishment and brutality of slavery. He describes in many of his books about his own experiences as a slave. A reader is able to perceive a clear image of slavery through Douglass' book. His writings explain the effects of slavery and the struggle to overthrow it, as well as the condition of free blacks both before and after the Emancipation, the politics of the Civil War, and the failed promise of Reconstruction the followed.
As a child, Douglass was taught how to read by Sophia Auid. She was drawn to the wondering mind of Frederick Douglass. Sophia's husband made her stop teaching Frederick Douglass because this would, "Spoil the best nigger in the world... forever unfitting him for the duties of a slave."
Being a slave, Frederick went through many hard times. He witnessed many horrible acts that his "master" would give out every now and then. Douglass lived with his Aunt in one of the master's corridors. Unfortunately, his slaveholder was not the nicest person in the world, which we see in Beloved also. It's not very likely to come across a very polite slaveholder, being that they "own" other human beings for the purpose of work. I think that it would be very hard to write about the hardest times in your life, or as in Beloved, the hardest times of someone else's life. It all goes back to the slaveholder being a total jerk to these people. Frederick's slaveholder would sometimes take great pleasure in whipping a slave. Douglass was often times awakened by the screams of his Aunt. She would be tied and whipped on her back. The...